The corporate media landscape has saturated our feeds with images of NATO allies as superheroes, science fiction and fantasy protagonists, and pop culture icons. NATO’s enemies are villainized as the primary antagonists of major fandoms. The indoctrinated masses therefore cannot break free from seeing the wars their country started as a game where you merely root for the right team. Distancing wars from geopolitical realities and likening them to cartoon characters and childrens’ stories invents a reality in which morality is undisputed and it’s always the good guys who have to win. In just the past two months, an explosion of such images has defined the liberal discourse and obfuscated the gruesome realities of the preventable, NATO-instigated conflict in Ukraine.

Some of the best examples involving our pop culture heroes

A cartoon saluting the efforts of Zelensky, an unnamed soldier, and a frontline health worker was widely shared by MCU and DC Comics fans.

By Braised Pork Blog / Medium

Depicting Zelensky as the noblest of all, while implying that the soldier and health worker are on equal levels of reverence, erases the reality that Zelensky and most soldiers are engaged in the destruction of human life rather than rescue. It also ignores the fact that frontline health workers in capitalist countries are in such a dire situation because their governments had diverted their funding to the police and military instead of following science-based COVID prevention throughout the pandemic.

Never mind the blood-stained genocidal flag the original Captain America represents, nor his background of loyal service to the American Empire. Fans just want to admire some masterful artwork that repurposes an imperialist Cold War hero without bringing any pesky politics into it. Just let us have our fandom, ok?

While this image may have been made ironically, quite a few liberals have eagerly compared Zelensky to CIA-backed Wakandan monarchists and real-life imperialists like Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

To fans of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, it is indisputable that Zelensky must be Harry Potter and Putin must be Voldemort.

Even many fans who are already highly critical of Rowling’s transphobia, antisemitism, racism, and adamant support for neoliberal systems like the police, have fallen victim to the liberal curse of the Boy Who Lived.

Not to be outdone, Star Wars fans depict the Ukrainian armed forces as the Rebel Alliance and Russia as the Empire.

It does make sense on a certain level — Russia is a big country. Ukraine is a small country. That obviously makes Russia the Galactic Empire and Ukraine the Rebel Alliance. Simple, right? If only we knew that the US military has nearly 13 times the funding of the Russian military, that the US has more than 800 military bases in over 70 countries, or that the US spends more on its military than the next 11 highest military spenders combined…the red, white, and blue on those formiddable Star Destroyers might start to mean something different.

Fans who prefer Lord of the Rings by J.R.R Tolkien will find plenty to their taste as well. Tolkienites have likened Ukrainian forces to the hobbits of the Shire and the Russians to the orcs of Mordor.

The orcs of Mordor: an ugly, deformed, inherently evil race who eat raw flesh, enslave others and themselves, lack any form of moral agency, and mindlessly serve the machinations of Sauron to get the Ring that controls them all. Sounds just like the Russians!

The stars in America’s longest-running sitcom have also picked up the new hobby of Ukraine activism. [Here mischiefed by Gus Leonisky as it should, considering they don't look happy flying the Ukrainian flag]....

READ MORE:

https://scheerpost.com/2022/06/14/captain-zelensky-and-the-war-crimes-that-never-happened/

SEE ALSO: 

FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOW%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%